‘Lack of Qualified Candidates’: Santosh Gangwar on Unemployment

“The companies come to recruit in North India complain that they don’t find the candidate with the right skill.”

File photo of Santosh Gangwar.

(Photo: IANS)

Union Minister of State (Independent) for Labour and Employment Santosh Kumar Gangwar on Sunday, 15 September, seemed to blame employment seekers for the rising rate of unemployment in the country.

While interacting with the media in Bareilly, Gangwar suggested that there was no dearth of jobs in the country but companies recruiting candidates from North India have said that they don’t find candidates with the right qualification.

“Our ministry is monitoring the job situation. And there is no dearth of jobs in the country. The companies that come to recruit in North India complain that they don’t find the candidate with the right skill and qualification.”

Santosh Kumar Gangwar, MoS (Independent), Labour and Employment

‘Gangwar Is Insulting North Indians’: Priyanka Gandhi

Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra accused Gangwar of insulting north Indians.

Gandhi, in a tweet, said, “Mr Minister, it has been more than five years for your government. There is no job creation. Whatever jobs were there, they have been snatched due to the economic slowdown brought by the government. You want to escape by insulting North Indians.”

The youth is looking towards the government in the hope that it will do something good for them, she added.

Gangwar’s statement comes at a time when the unemployment rate of the country has been pegged at a 45-year-high of 6.1 percent. The data was revealed by a report in the Business Standard ahead of the 2019 elections and was corroborated by National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) after the election results were declared.

India’s GDP growth rate has also slipped to 5 percent in the first quarter of 2019-2010 from 5.8 percent in January-March quarter.

Earlier this week, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had drawn flack for her statement on the slowdown in the automobile sector when she linked the dire state of the industry to the mindset of millennials for preferring Ola and Uber.